Not So Late Nite Oddity – Nancy & Me: A True Story
Editors Note: I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but I decided to go ahead and post this now incase Nancy suddenly up and dies. I don’t want to get accused of dancing on the woman’s grave.
Before I begin I just want to thank my wingnut readers for catapulting this site up in the google. It seems that if you search for “Nancy Reagan & horrible person” this site is NUMBER ONE!!
(I think that is pretty much proof that Nancy Reagan is a horrible person, Right?…I kid.)
Anyway, I happened to have met Mrs. Reagan before when I was working at a summer camp in New Jersey. She stopped by to tell the kids to “just say no!” to any pushers trying to get them to try “mary jane, smack, crack, window pane, ludes, shrooms” or any other of a pharmacopeia of drugs shady looking swarthy guys were trying to get 7 year old kids to try back in the ‘80’s.
She was shaking the staff’s hands and greeting us as we stood on a kind of rope line. The rope was invisible but fasioned out of the very real and fiberous glares of sercet service officers. I said, “Hi.” and she said,”You are doing a terrific job here.” Which was not so much to me as to to the group. We smiled. I smiled extra because I knew for a fact that I was doing a sucky job. I have a few talents, camp counselor-ing is not one of them.
She didn’t strike me as a horrible person at that meeting. No, she struck me as an enormous headed paper mache puppet of the sort used by German hippies to protest the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or animal vivisection. I mean her noggin was HUGE!! It was unsettling. Even writing about it now, all these years later, thinking about her gigantic head will probably keep me up tonight.
So what is the Bottom Line? Nancy Reagan is a horrible person? Maybe. Nancy Reagan has a giant head? Definitely.
LOL, a giant head like Mr. Met.
Very similar. I kid you not.
did you get lucky with the female counterpart across the lake that counseled the girls camp.
during the dance you were the counselor that manned up and danced with the female counselor to break the ice?
Need you ask?
I have a lot of sympathy for Mrs. Reagan. Dealing with a husband with alzheimer’s for 10 years is something I can relate too, as I am dealing with it with my grandmother. She really loved her husband, and that was genuine.
I have disagreed with her politics, and I did not think she behaved well as a mother towards her children, especially Patti. But it seems that Ronald Reagan’s illness solved that family difference. And really, it is her and her family’s business, not mine, in the end.
Is she a horrible person? No. That is Jason’s opinion or hyperbole. In fact, I have grown to respect her over the last decade in her support for stem cell research and her distaste and disdain for John McCain for his horrible dumping of his first wife for a trophy wife.
As Ronald Reagan is famously quoted: “Big head equals good head.”
Clinton is said to have told friends that that explained his attraction to Monica.
Just calling ’em as I see ’em. Although, (DD) I will allow that I am probably getting more tone deaf as the election nears.
Hey, we all have differing opinions on things, Jason. That is why the right’s charge that we here at DL are an echo chamber are without merit.
Jason–Took me until the 2nd paragraph to realize you meant Nancy Reagan and not Willing…
deldem…you are being generous…I didn’t care for the woman during her more public days, and definitely thought she personified that whole “what goes on in this house, stays in this house” at the risk of alienating children for husband and appearance. But I do think that was a generational thing, much more palpable because of the public spotlight. You mention Patty, I always felt bad for Maureen–the older one (shoot, I hope I got the name right), she really tried to court her father’s favor politically,and as a serious adult–but always came up short and embroiled in something. Yes, Patty and Ron seemed to bear a brunt (remember Ron being photographed in the food stamp line in NY, as he struggled w/ his dancing career?), but I think now time has softened, and all their “missteps”, are chalked up to young adulthood. Not a good time for Nancy, who relished a sitting room appearance, intolerant of her own who would detract from that, not realizing the phase in life they were. She should have just said yes, had a drink, and get real–like Betty!!! I do hope the years they all had together post DC were kinder, consoling, and forgiving.
And here we are 20 years later w/ everyone in the picture–pregnant unmarried teen, mixed race men, second wives, adopted children, recovering addicts, boyfriend of pregnant unmarried teen, POWs, and women at the front and center, not behind. From sitting room to rec room.
‘I have disagreed with her politics, and I did not think she behaved well as a mother towards her children, especially Patti.
This is the second time (that I know of) that you have criticized the parenting skills of a woman. I find it curious that you didn’t seem to question the father’s parenting skills in either situation. Why is that? Do you harbor some kind of anger toward women in general or is it more personal? Were you raised in a very patriarchal home? I’m not being snarky or shitty, I’m just curious because I sense an underlying resentment being directed at women and I wonder what it stems from.
As a rule, I try not to question people’s parenting skills. I believe that, while there are certainly exceptions where people are hideously abusive, we all do the best we can with our kids and hope for the best. There are so many different variables at play in every family situation. It’s completely unfair to judge a family dynamic or a person’s parenting skills from what you see on the outside.
All that aside, I will agree that Nancy Reagan has a freakishly large head. Though I’ve often wondered if maybe her head is normal sized, but her bird-like skeletal frame makes it seem bigger. Either way, it’s kind of disturbing.
changed your answer Jason…bastard
Um Dom..I think DD was referring to Patti’s tell-all book, which indicts mama. Yes, it may seem unfair, but again, it was the generational thing–mother raises, dad gets a pass–unless abuse or incest. That was then.
And yes, that head did always photograph rather large. Now you have me thinking about the Coneheads on SNL
Again, that’s just one side of the story. I didn’t read Patti’s book. Did her other children write similar things about her? I’m not saying she was a good mother, I’m just saying I think it’s inappropriate to judge another person’s parenting skills unless there is obvious abuse. How many times have we seen people (adults and children) in the public eye who appeared to have their shit together only to find out later that they were complete screw-ups all along? I just think there’s good and bad in every family and it’s best to withhold judgment unless you have personal knowledge of the situation.